The present invention disclosed herein relates to an apparatus and method for treating a substrate, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for treating a substrate through a supercritical process.
Semiconductor devices are manufactured through various processes such as a photolithography process in which circuit patterns are formed on a substrate such as a silicon wafer. During such processes, various contaminants such as particles, organic contaminants, and metallic impurities are generated. Such contaminants cause defects on a substrate and thus affect semiconductor device performance and process yield. Therefore, cleaning processes are included in semiconductor device manufacturing processes to remove contaminants.
For example, cleaning processes include: a chemical process in which contaminants are removed from a substrate using a chemical; a washing process in which the chemical is washed using pure water; and a drying process in which the substrate is dried. In such a drying process, the pure water is replaced with an organic solvent such as isopropyl alcohol (IPA) having relatively low surface tension, and the organic solvent is evaporated.
However, although an organic solvent is used in a drying process, the drying process may cause pattern collapse in semiconductor devices having fine circuit patterns having line widths of 30 nm or smaller. Thus, instead of such a drying process, the use of a supercritical drying process increases.